I recently asked my pal, Jason Keath if he could write out the history of Social Fresh. Here’s what he sent me. Enjoy! For those of us in Charlotte, you’ll remember much of what he speaks of…

——————————

Written by Jason Keath – Owner of Social Fresh

In 2005 I decided I wanted to be a creative director for an ad agency.

This was pre-Mad Men mind you. But the fine arts major inside of me saw the creative world of agencies as a pinnacle of sorts.

Needless to say I got sidetracked.

Today, almost 8 years later, I am running a company called Social Fresh, a social media training company. Social Fresh started in 2009 as a social media conference in Charlotte, NC, where I was living and working at the time.

Social Fresh came about out of frustration. Working my way through three very different agencies, where I was lucky enough to be able to pitch social media strategies for clients and potential clients, I recognized that there was a big gap when it came to how people thought about social marketing.

So it’s been about one week since I left Ephricon. Wow! Have I been busy.

I’m not the type to sit around waiting for something to happy. I get right to work doing what I do. And I am loving it. As soon as I finished the video in the last post, I went to my big huge white board and started scripting out what my plan was. Below are my top priorities.

1. First and foremost, I put in big red letters right in the center of the board the words “Blog Every Day”. It’s one of my top priorities. I think I’m a pretty good writer. But I want to be better. It’s critical to good marketing. I think good writing is critical to being a good marketer. The best and only way to get better at any media is to do more of it. It’s true for doing good video, good audio, and especially good writing. I want to do more of all of that. In fact, I’m determined to.

2. Next, I’m spending considerable time building my e-commerce sites. In particular, I’m adding products and working on the marketing for my newest site, Waste Receptacle Solutions. This site has done very well for us this year. But it’s mostly because people are going straight to the product pages. That’s ok by me. Sales are sales. Money is money. So I’m adding more products (such as Witt Industries waste receptacles) to get more. But I’m also going to soon start working on the category pages for stuff like outdoor waste receptacles and commercial waste receptacles. If you check those links, you’ll see that’s early yet. I’m making great progress but I’ve got a lot to do.

I’m currently on the plane flying home from Social Fresh East held in Tampa on April 18, 19. This is my first conference since being hired on as the Director of Client Services at Ephricon. It’s my first conference I’ve attended as an “agency guy” instead of a “consultant” or “entrepreneur”.

Jason Keath always puts on an incredible conference. I’ve worked with him quite a bit the last few years and it always amazes me how skilled he is as a content curator. Read More

This was not something I was expecting, but the own Jon Payne approached me about a month ago asking if I knew anyone that could fill a role he needed. (I get questions like that a lot because of having several students and colleagues that know and learn SEO.) I’ve known Jon for several years now and have respected his agency. It has a great reputation. I also personally know several members of his staff and like them very much. Read More

Over the past two weeks, I’ve parted ways with all my clients, talked to most of my students, and am currently in the process of editing the HIPPO websites. Today is Jason Dockery’s last day working with me and I’ll be starting the next phase early next week.

As of yesterday, iTunes sent out a new version 11. Some are heralding it as the iTunes you always wanted.

Let’s face it, Apple products are pretty nice. But their software has not been that great. For years now, iTunes has been clunky and weird. If you’re honest about it, you only like it because you are used to it.

Interestingly, this week’s TWiT podcast stated that Google has been great at Internet services, but not so great at design of physical products. Yet, Apple builds great products, but is not so good at software and Internet services. Read More

For those of you that have attended my classes or attended my meetups, you know I’ve been a little “under the radar” lately. So here’s an update:

For the past two years, I’ve been working a lot with Social Fresh and for a few clients. I’ve also reopened the Hippo Internet Marketing classes on Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, Blogging, and other topics.

But last month I moved my office from Huntersville to Mooresville. It’s a closer location from home and a little cheaper. But more importantly, it’s setup to do video better. Read More